Worker shortage concerns home builders

A lack of skilled trade positions could crimp the recovery in Florida.

By JOSH SALMAN

Home builders fear a growing shortage of workers in skilled trade positions could begin to crimp the sector's brisk recovery across Southwest Florida.

The problem signals the vast shift from the trough of the construction downturn, when the industry dumped 350,000 Floridians onto the unemployment rolls.

Many of those laborers switched professions or moved to different areas, while the pipeline of young workers choosing construction careers dried up.

Now that demand for new homes is surging again, builders are feeling the pinch.

“Most of the folks with these skills have left the area to find new work — they're gone,” said Sally Hill, a spokeswoman for Suncoast Workforce, which aggressively placed jobless construction workers into new fields. “They are fewer and fewer and harder and harder to find.”

During the second quarter, developers broke ground on 970 homes in the Sarasota-Bradenton market, an 8 percent increase from the first quarter and a 75 percent spike from the same three months a year ago, according to initial figures released Monday by Metrostudy, an industry research firm.

For the first six months of 2013, home builders are now on track for their busiest year since the housing boom, with new home starts up 73 percent from the first half of 2012, the report shows.

The uptick has been fanned primarily by a decade-low supply of existing homes for sale. Coupled with pent-up demand from retiring baby boomers, that has pushed more buyers toward new homes.

But the turnaround has been so swift that the lack of qualified workers could soon limit the sector's ability to keep pace with new homes.

“Labor right now is containing the number of units builders can start and the number of units they can close,” said Tony Polito, regional director of Metrostudy's Tampa and Sarasota markets. “A lot of builders are facing this issue.”

As of May, construction accounted for 14,500 full-time jobs in Sarasota and Manatee counties, still down 800 from the same time last year.

That also is 50 percent lower than the employment peak in 2006.

Statewide, the 356,300 workers that took home a construction sector paycheck in May was an increase of 12,400 jobs, or 3.6 percent, from the same time a year ago. But Florida is employing just half the workers it did in the mid-2000s.

Industry observers attribute that to advancements in technology, forced efficiencies and the depth of the sector's slump.

During the slump, thousands of Sunshine State contractors also flocked to states like Texas or North Carolina, where there was more work. Others switched professions entirely to more stable sectors, like health care or truck driving.

Meanwhile, students who saw the Great Recession batter friends and family have opted for a different career path, said Alan Anderson, executive vice president for the Manatee Sarasota Homebuilders Association.

The labor shortage has been the deepest in specialized trades, like framing, roofing and drywall.

If new students do not soon begin to bridge that gap, and the present work force continues to age and retire, the long-term health of the housing market could suffer, Anderson said.

Several area schools — including the Manatee Technical Institute, North Port High School, Palmetto High School, Manatee High School and the Sarasota Military Academy — now offer some type of specialized construction technology program.

Sarasota County Technical Institute suspended its program three years ago, Anderson said.

“We're not going to be able to pull people in from outside the area to build our homes,” he said. “We will not be able to retain our production as time goes on if we don't begin to backfill this with younger people.”

The association has reached out to its counterparts in counties just north and south of here only to find that they are grappling with similar issues.

Today, the trade group will make a presentation to a handful of local builders to introduce a new pilot program aimed at retraining skilled workers and encouraging more students to enter construction.

If the pilot is successful, Anderson hopes to roll out the details to his entire member base.

With so many home builders cutting back to survive the Great Recession, firms learned to do more work with less resources.

It now takes Neal fewer employees to construct a house than during its four-decade history.

With recent wounds still fresh, home builders are not surprised that laborers once crowding the unemployment office are not eager to get back into construction.

Given the unpredictably of Florida housing, some workers worry that conditions might be aligning for another bubble. They do not want to be on the losing end of that cycle again.

“They got burned,” said Lakewood Ranch-based home builder John Cannon. “Builders are being cautious, too. I don't want to hire someone then have to let him go. Builders are reluctant to put people on their payroll.”

Builders are also wrestling with the rising cost of land and building materials.

Some experts predict that the only way for builders to fill their vacancies will be to offer higher wages, and that is sure to translate to higher home prices — and perhaps create the kind of inflation already boosting values for existing homes, said Jack McCabe, a real estate consultant in Deerfield Beach.

“When it costs more to build a house, it will cost more to buy a house,” McCabe said. “All of these things right now are escalating price appreciation.”

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